Sevendust continued their musical legacy with another headliner to start off 2019. The tour came through Connecticut on February 18th, a chilly Monday night; selling out Toad’s Place in New Haven. Openers included:Tremonti, Cane Hill, Lullwater, and Kirra. Click the flyer photo below for further tour information:

Sevendust capped off the night brilliantly, as they will surely continue to do for years to come. The headliners proudly shared that this year would be their twentieth on the road, which is truly an incredible feat. The crowd sang along to songs from the band’s lengthy catalog, as the headliner’s played with an undeniable passion.

Shortly after the release of their debut EP ‘Still Breathing,’ John Cooper’s new project Fight The Fury hit the road and played their first stretch of shows. Their very first show was at The Forge in Joliet, Illinois and HeadRush Tv was there to cover it along with an interview with the rockstar John Cooper before the show.

As Fight The Fury took the stage, John Cooper (Vocalist, Bassist), Seth Morrison (Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals), John Panzer (Guitar) and Jared Ward (Drums) wasted no time as they hit the crowd right from the start with their venue rocking Metal. Leading off the setlist, they went straight into their new EP as they dropped their hit “I Cannot” and continued until they gave the fans a bit of a surprise as they snuck in the chart-topping hit “Hero” from Skillet.

As a fan, Fight The Furygave the crowd everything that they could possibly want as they played their new EP in its entirety, while mixing in songs from Skillet that people have jammed out to for years! Fight The Fury is a new Metal project, but definitely a band you do not want to sleep on as they sound as if they’ve been together for years. The chemistry between the band goes unmatched and it shows as they deliver a set that gets the people talking! Before this debut show though, we had the honor of meeting with man who started this in the first place,John Cooper. Check below to view our interview with him!

HeadRush Tv: Your debut EP ‘Still Breathing' was just released not too long ago on October 26! Congratulations on that first of all! Do you mind sharing what Fight The Fury truly means to you and why you wanted to start this new project?

John Cooper: What Fight The Fury means to me, you know it’s funny because we’re here and this is the first show. It feels like starting completely over and its cool cause it’s like Rocky IV [film] where he goes back to the roots and he goes back to the basics and kicks it back to the start.

That’s basically what it feels like and its cool and it reminds me of when I first started to play in a band. It was about the riffs and about the sound and the aggression of Rock music. It was 1995 when I started - so you know in the 90’s it meant a little something different. I love Skillet and I loved the premiere because we got a lot of fans outside of Rock that don’t necessarily like Rock music, but they like Skillet cause that’s about as Rock as they would ever go.

Then we have Metal fans that also like Skillet, but we’re about as soft as they would go. I love that, but Fight The Fury is a bit more raw and I don’t have to add ten different cooks in the kitchen messing with my lyrics. Once you sold and once you’ve been successful and sold a lot of records, everyone wants to get involved and they start messing with your stuff and that’s okay and it has helped me sell a lot of records, but I wanted to do something were no one could mess with my music. Like you know, don’t mess with it!

HeadRush Tv:How surreal is it to see everything coming together for Fight The Fury? You released the debut EP, you shot a killer music video for ‘My Demons,’ you’re on your first stretch of shows seeing Fight The Fury on those venue signs, and then big shows coming up in the future with the Breaking Benjamin Tour!

John Cooper: You know its so good and its funny cause you don’t know what to expect when you're starting a side project. You think, I wonder if my fans and the Skillet fans are going to love this or completely hate it and be mad about it - because you really never know. So it feels good to be ramping up a little and it feels great to be landed on the Breaking Benjamin Tour. That’s great for Skillet and Fight The Fury, due to both bands releasing new music, so it’ll be a cool opportunity for people to see Fight The Fury. I feel like when people see Fight The Fury play, they’ll get it more like they’ll know it’s not just a fun side project that we just dropped in.

Seeing the band will really help so it feels great that it’s finally here and I don’t mind coming back and playing at the small venues, because to me that’s how you build a rock-band. You got to win a fan at a time by putting on a great live show and having the word spread.

HeadRush Tv: It’s kind of like everyone is trying to determine which project goes
harder/heavier Skillet or Fight The Fury but in reality, they both go hard and heavy in their own way which is the beauty behind your two bands! What are the things that you take from Skillet that helps you with Fight The Fury?

John Cooper: Well you know everyone is a critic, everybody is saying and being like “I love Skillet, but this Fight The Fury stuff is so heavy I could never listen to it.” Then you have others that are like “Fight The Fury isn’t even as heavy as Skillet.” So, everyone has their own opinions and one of the things that I took from Skillet is that even with Fight The Fury when its at its heaviest, it still has a melody to it. I always grew up on heavy music, but it wasn’t just; using Metallica who’s maybe not as melodic as Iron Maiden - but I loved Iron Maiden and to me they were really heavy too just in a different kind of way that had a darkness to it. It was also very operatic, and it still worked. So for me, from Skillet that I’ve learned is that heavier isn’t always better.

Good music is good and bad is bad, if it sucks it sucks. If something is good and catchy someone will go, “Wow I feel that emotion.” So that’s probably the main thing that I have taken from Skillet and I believe Fight he Fury is a bit more experimental and something like that.

HeadRush Tv: Getting a bit more personal now looking deeper as a successful artist, What are your biggest influences and inspirations that helps you fuel that drive to still be killing it with Skillet and taking over the game with Fight The Fury?

John Cooper: I just love music. That might sound really silly, but you have to in this
industry. What it is though, is the passion for the music. As you said, you wanted to get personal and deep and this might be cheesy, but when I was growing up, music just meant so much. When I was listening to Metallica, Iron Maiden or even Bon Jovi for that manner. I loved more of the softer side of Rock as well, like I said, Bon Jovi and Motley Crew which was more commercial is what I would call it.

I always felt that those bands understood me and a lot of us can remember being thirteen years old and thinking Trent Reznor is the only one that knows what I’m going through, and it sounds dramatic especially when you’re a teenager and I was fighting with my Dad and my Mom died when I was fourteen years old. Me and my Dad started fighting a lot and got remarried two months after my Moms death and after I just felt very abandoned and forgotten and misunderstood. We would be screaming at each other all the time and just was always a step away from fist to cuffs and instead I would go in my room and put my headphones on and it’d be like “Screw it, Guns N Roses knows how I feel!” It was that kind of thing for me, music has always been an escape and for me I see those people at the show singing the songs and after they tell me stuff like “Dude this song is what got me through my drug addiction” and I’m always amazed cause they share how they’re clean now and your music is what got them through it or through other hard times like divorce or my parents divorce or suicidal thoughts.

So, it just drives me and I remember having that feeling very well so I love making music, because it is a way to help people and a way to help myself. It’s very therapeutic I suppose, but it is also a way to help other people and there is just nothing like that.

HeadRush Tv: As we conclude this interview here, is there anything you’d like to say to your fans and followers that will be reading this about what the future lies for Fight The Fury and what’s next to come!?

John Cooper: Well let’s see, you mentioned the Breaking Benjamin Tour already and we are very excited about that cause we are very big fans of Breaking Benjamin. They’re one of my favorites actually, especially over the past ten years. So, I’m excited about that run and we were able to twist to have Fight The Fury come on it, which is am great look for us because I really want to release a full length record and I think before we do that, we need to get on the road a little bit and start getting some fans and getting out there through word of mouth that we talked about a little bit ago.

Basically, get enough people excited about a LP, so that we could release a full-length album. In about six months I’ll be pivoting over to Skillet cause we are going to be releasing a new Skillet record so I’m just ramping Fight The Fury up to get as much momentum as I can. Then when the new Skillet album comes out while I’m on tour, I’ll start recording the next Fight The Fury project. It has just been a crazy 2018 cause we recorded three albums. The Skillet album which is about seventy percent done, we did Fight The Fury on the road as well, and then our drummer in Skillet released her project Ledger and that was done and recorded on the road as well. So, you could say we all worked very hard in 2018 and its all going to pay off in
the following year.

Tickets are on sale now for this Breaking Benjamin Tour and we suggest you get your tickets now before they are gone! Believe us when we say that you do not want to miss Fight The Fury on this tour with Skillet, Asking Alexandria, Underoath and Diamante! Click the photo below to the original source & pre-sale tickets.

​If you went to 8123 Fest in January, there’s a good chance you’re still having post concert depression. I know I am! In our archives we promoted the event: here.

If you’re not familiar, 8123 Fest is a bi-yearly music festival that had it’s second run just a few weeks ago in Phoenix, Arizona. It is run by 8123 and The Maine, usually coinciding with the band’s anniversary or 'album birthdays.'

What separated 8123 Fest this year from 8123 Fest in 2017, was the size. Over 5,000 fans filled Civic Space Park on 1/19 and there were multiple stages to accommodate the bigger lineup. There were also more food trucks, photo booths designed after previous album eras (CSWS, Black and White, Lovely Little Lonely), the iconic white van was available for fans to sign, and organizations like Girls Behind The Rock Show were part of the day.

The Maine’s first full length album, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, turned 11 while the band turned 12 in 2019. What made the fest even more special is that Maine played CSWS in full, playing songs live that they haven’t in years. Old and new fans were both losing their minds, and I know I screamed the whole duration of “You Left Me.”

It was an amazing moment to hear thousands of people chant “8123 means everything to me” during "We All Roll Along" and while the band had played their new single, "Numb Without You," at the request show the night before, the crowd had such a higher energy for it at the fest.

To end the night, an after party was held at the Van Buren and the acts from the fest took turns DJing. And honestly, if Mayday Parade ever wants to call it quits from music, they could restart as Emo Nite DJs. They played the perfect mix of My Chemical Romance and Say Anything.

While the music and good vibes created a magical weekend, perhaps the most powerful aspect was the 8123 family coming together.

I got to see friends from the internet for the first time and also reunited with old friends. I can’t imagine a better experience and did things out of my comfort zone this trip such as hiking and taking spontaneous trip to somewhere we’ve never been before - Sedona, Arizona.

I’m not the only one that feels the strong sense of community from The Maine’s fan-base.

In fact, Leslie describes 8123 as being “family.” Adriana P also feels a strong connection. She shared two photo, which is included below yet above her quotes.

“I’m from CA. As a fan who’s been there for the past 10ish years, 8123 has slowly morphed into more than just a number, a lyric from one of my favorite songs."

"On the way to Arizona, I went solo, but came back with a ton of memories & more people who understood the feeling."

"Their music may have evolved and we all grew up, but 8123 remains the same. Those people who I met in Arizona are people I would never have crossed paths due to distance and just being from different walks of life."

"Aside from the 8123 fest, I just walked around Arizona and took some photos on my polaroid. It was a new place, so I didn’t want to commit to anything. I can’t wait to go back, Arizona has a different atmosphere than California.”